when building my 5sgte there are afew noticeable differences between the 5sfe and 3sgte. one of the main differences is the timing setup, with the 5sfe you have a single external cam gear and two internal cam gears that link the intake cam to the exhaust cam. also the crankshaft timing gear is different, along with the rod sizes.

here is a picture of a 3sgte rod trying to fit on a 5sfe crankshaft

diffrences between the 3sgte and 5sfe heads

5sfe and 3sgte crankshaft gears lined up on keyway of 5sfe crank. you can tell the noticeable diffrences.

picture of the 5sfe stock rod and piston and the new forged rod and piston

Looking good guys, bill I would find d na cams or turbo it.I believe the gen 2 3sge cams fit with minor grinding. I have some spare gen1 3sgte stuff if you need anything, including a gen 1 3sgte fuel rail and injectors. One big thing to pay attention to is the coolant lines in the 3s bead matching the 5s block.

That was one of the things I was concerned about when initially building the engine, comparing oil gallies, head stud/bolt locations, water jackets and head overlay inside the block/combustion chambers. They all lined up. I even compared the 3s head gasket to the 5s head gasket just to be sure this wouldn't be a issue.

Also with the new rods/pistons I had my local machine shop ballance the rotating assembly, polish the crank journals and grind them down alittle. This isn't ideal but it will work.